1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to citrus juice products which have reduced calorie amounts due primarily to having lower sugar contents when compared with whole like citrus juices. These reduced calorie beverages exhibit texture, mouth feel, taste and sensory characteristics that are on par with such characteristics of whole juices. More particularly, the invention is useful in the field of orange juice beverages which emulate whole orange juices. Citrus juice insoluble solids, or sinking solids are incorporated into a reduced sugar citrus juice to thereby greatly improve its characteristics without adding substantial levels of sugar. Citrus juice products are prepared that have reduced sugar and increased insoluble solids.
2. Description of the Related Art
It has heretofore been proposed to prepare fruit juice containing so-called diet beverages. Included are those which incorporate artificial sweeteners and increased background pulp volumes which are said to reduce unpleasant aftertaste characteristics of the artificial sweeteners.
It is generally known that aroma and flavor components tend to be present in sinking solids or insoluble solids, often referred to as sinking pulp, while other compounds tend to be found more extensively in the liquid phase or serum portion of the juice. For example, early on it was suggested that orange oil existed as an adsorbed layer on the sinking pulp of orange juice. Blair et al., “Exploratory Experiments To Identify Chemical Reactions Causing Flavor Deterioration During Storage Of Canned Orange Juice, I. Incompatibility of Peel-Oil Constituence With the Acid Juice”, Journal of Food Research, 17, 235 (1952). Others observed that oil was found primarily in the pulp of orange juice. Scott et al., “Composition of Orange Juice Cloud”, Journal of Food Science, 30, 833 (1965); and Peleg et al., “Production Of Frozen Orange Juice Concentrate From Centrifugally Separated Serum And Pulp”, Journal of Food Science, 35, 649 (1970).
Radford et al., “Distribution Of Volatile Compounds Between The Pulp And Serum Of Some Fruit Juices”, Journal of Agricultural Food Chemistry, Volume 22, Number 6 (1974) made several evaluations regarding volatile flavor compounds of orange juice. This article observed that 98% of the limonene in an orange juice sample was recovered from the pulp phase, while only 2% was recovered from the serum phase. Other hydrocarbons such as alpha-pinene, sabinene, mycrene, and valencene were found almost exclusively in the pulp phase, whereas esters, alcohols, and aldehydes were found almost exclusively in the serum phase.
While the art generally has noted differences in the make-up of pulp or solids phases of orange juices on the one hand and the make-up of liquid or serum phases of orange juices on the other hand, recognition of these overall differences has not led to significant direct improvement of actual orange juice products.
One challenge facing the citrus juice industry is the problem of the caloric content of orange juices, grapefruit juices and the like. As awareness of the nutritional benefits of consuming citrus fruits has increased, so has the demand for such products. Citrus is an extremely valuable source of nutrition, and has been recognized to aid in the treatment and prevention of disease. Consequently, it is widely believed that the regular consumption of citrus is a beneficial, if not essential, part of maintaining one's health. However, some individuals do not consume more beneficial quantities of citrus juices because of their perception that they are high in calories and sugars.
There is accordingly a need for approaches which will allow the production of citrus juice beverages which retain nutritional benefits in formulations which are reduced in calories and sugars when compared with whole citrus juices of the same types.
Needs such as these are successfully addressed by the present invention. An important element in achieving the objectives of the present invention is an appreciation that citrus juices having relatively low Brix levels can be transformed into low calorie citrus juice beverages without raising the Brix levels to those of whole juices by an approach which nevertheless mimics the texture and sensory and taste and mouth feel characteristics of a whole juice having traditional Brix levels.